Letter to the House of Lords

We at Friends of Gin & Tonic, loyal subjects of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth from the colony of Upper Canada and the convict colony of Australia, would like to enquire about the usage of the emblem of the British Parliament, specifically in connection with the House of Lords. Our good friend, the famous climate denier:

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley Carie, Rannoch, Scotland, PH17 2QJ +44 1882 632341; fax 632776; cell +44 7814 556423monckton@mail.com
has in the past claimed, among many other things, to be a member of the House of Lords. You have denied this (see here). Despite this and the copyright issue you raise here, he continues to use the parliamentary emblem -- slightly modified in colour to fit his rather love-parade taste in ties, and with a modified hat which is not even a Viscount’s coronet -- on his website and in his public presentations on climate change denial:

We take his continued display of this emblem as evidence that you have not sought to deny him the use of it. That interests us because in the interests of gaining credibility from (false) authority, we would like to change the name of our organization to ‘Lords of Gin & Tonic’ and use a logo very similar to yours but enhanced from its present stuffy form with the subtle additions of a half-full highball glass and a lime. We assure you we would present it very tastefully, in conjunction with appropriate schtick promoting ourselves as upper-class twits.

The Lords of Gin and Tonic

Given that you haven’t prosecuted the Viscount Monckton, can we take it that you won’t prosecute us either? On the other hand, if you are intending to prosecute him, we’d be grateful for the foreknowledge. It would not only stop us debasing the parliamentary emblem, it might even make us think twice about taking the piss out of the Lords as a bunch of impotent and/or complicit old fools who by their silence let an obscure hereditary peer damage the unwashed public’s perception of the relevance of their institution more than at any time since that horrible man Asquith.

We look forward to your reply.

Regards,Your subjects,The Lords of Gin & Tonic

We sent this letter to the House of Lords in the evening of the 2nd of August, local Calgary time. By the time of posting it here, we have not received a reply.

Update. We sent a follow-up on 5th Aug 2010:

Dear Lord House,

Further to our letter from 2nd August (below), the fact that we have not received a reply from you, and sensu visconti Moncktonis, we take the liberty to use a modified House of Lords logo on our website: